Ouroboros Round the Mulberry Bush
by Aya-kun Rose
Summary: People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually - from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - ah. But you know all this already. Have you heard this one: Time wants to happen.


There are countless aborted timelines in which the Flash and the Reverse-Flash meet for their ritualistic blood-letting. Some of these, the ones Barry knows about, he himself has rewritten. But whether Eobard rewrites them, or whether the two of them work in tandem well before their time would have come, Barry never knows what they haven't done.

It is a fallacy, however, to believe that these things never happened (aren't happening, never will happen). People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually - from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - ah. But you know all this already.

Have you heard this one: Time wants to happen.

Again, it's a hilariously linear and subjective viewpoint, championed by a man who really ought to know better by now. It assumes that there is, in the natural order of things, a single timeline that is "more correct" than all the others. It's an attitude tantamount to combing through a blizzard during the Ice Age, trying to judge which snowflake is the "right" snowflake.

(Rip Hunter has intoned this line to the Flash on numerous occasions, across dozens of timelines and a in variety of contexts. Barry invariably laughs in his face.)

The beauty of infinite universes is that each of their timelines have infinite, wibbly-wobbly possibilities. So sure, time wants to happen. It wants to happen so much that _all things_ are happening at _all times_ , even the things that some people perceive as having personally rewritten. So there are an infinite number of timelines where the Flash and the Reverse-Flash see each other bleed; there are just as many (infinite) timelines where Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne never meet.

This is the nature of infinity. Deal with it.

Done dealing? Okay.

Moving on.

Let's consider a sequence of events that, subjectively speaking, will happen, have happened, won't happen, and/or never happened. Objectively speaking, of course, consider that this and all other sequences of events are never not happening. Consider the following:

Central City burns.

The arterial river that had bisected the sprawling metropolis in Barry's time had dried up maybe fifty years ago, and in its dusty bed there festers a winding scrabble of tents and corrugated lean-tos that separates the bad side of town from the worse side of town. If he'd come here at a different time in his life (and he will, has, almost did, etc.), Barry would have cried to see how the future has corroded away the very heart of him.

In this continuity, though, he's a Barry who's no stranger to the injustices of war. This isn't the first time he's seen Savage's future-tech send a civilization toppling to its knees. The fires are the same, the screams are the same, the soul-crushing weariness is the same. His feet don't seem to touch the ground as he races through the night, pulling people from wreckage, apprehending looters, toting fresh-new orphans to places of relative safety.

Dawn breaks, brown and murky through the smoke, and Barry hauls himself to a stop near a downed statue of some founding father, some long-dead patriot who must have meant something to the people of the past. There's a flag there, too, the old-fashioned American one Barry's used to, trampled and smoldering on the pavement. He stoops and takes it by the narrow end, giving it a flap as if all the emblem needs is a bit of spit-shine and elbow-grease to restore it to its former glory.

The Flash whistles a few bars of "Proud to be an American," less ironically than you might think; it's lighthearted and breezy-like as if this were no different than hanging up the laundry on a bright Saturday morning.

"God _bless_ the JLA," Eobard Thawne finishes the thought for him.

The Flash goes rigid, fists tight around the tattered flag. "Thawne." He turns slowly, deliberately, refusing to let his anger get the better of him. Thawne has had this effect on him for a while, in this timeline, where the instant his presence is known, Barry feels red-hot magma erupt from his deepest recesses to come roiling and burning through every inch of him. It's rage enough to burn Central City to the ground ten times over. "Nice to see you."

The Reverse-Flash lounges against the scorched remnant of what yesterday must have been a majestically ancient tree, arms crossed, the jut of his hip garish in the ashy dawn. "Flash," he returns, as though Barry's secret identity isn't a secret between them at this juncture, "Always a pleasure."

Barry twitches. His knuckles crack. "What are you doing here, Thawne." It's a warning, not a question. Whatever Thawne's done that's got the Time Masters wrapped around his little finger and the JLA turning a blind eye, Barry doesn't like it. There's nothing that could get him to trust the smug bastard.

Thawne unfolds out of his casual lean, his arms spreading to placate. "Don't worry about me adding any more trouble to your plate, Flash," he says with a smile (he says everything these days with a smile), "All this destruction is too . . . obvious for my tastes."

Barry shakes his head, one corner of his mouth carving up in a rueful curve. "You always did like to strike from the shadows," he scoffs. It only cements Thawne's grin in place.

"I would like to say that now's not the time for the proverbial stroll down memory lane, except for the fact that it is. For me it is, anyway." He slinks a predatory step or two towards the Flash, who grits his teeth and holds his ground and absolutely does not dismantle the Reverse-Flash's limbs from his body.

Barry does allow himself an irritated roll of the eyes. "Pretty sure someone else's cornered the market on villainous riddles, pal. And I gotta tell ya, green's really _not_ your color."

Thawne's close enough now to show the jarringly familiar-unfamiliar slant of his jaw, his cheekbones, the set of his eyes. Barry will never admit that he still expects to find the once and future Harrison Wells in the face under the cowl.

Barry tenses up without meaning to, Thawne standing just at arm's length as if he's waiting for something. He expects the Reverse-Flash might hit him, or run bodily through him, or, hell, if Thawne decided to bite him Barry wouldn't really be all that surprised. Really, any action that Barry could react to would be welcome, any excuse to release the catch that has Barry all wound up and nowhere to go.

When it comes, it's not quite the inciting incident the Flash is looking for. Thawne drops his smile, licks ash from his lips, and says, "I was born and raised in Central City, did you know that?"

Barry's going to shake his head, confused and somehow chilled for a reason he can't put a name to, but a shelled tenement building a block down the street chooses that moment to give up the ghost with a groaning shudder of tumbling masonry and shearing steel. They both look towards the billowing dust as it rises to mingle with the morning's smoky haze, Barry's jaw working. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Thawne offering him a magnanimous reprieve, a slight shrug and tip of the head. _Go. I'll wait_.

He won't help, but he'll wait.

Barry's off in a flash.

The more he sees of the future, the less he likes it. He misses having the team in his ear when he's running forward on these missions; he feels adrift without Cisco's steadfast humor and Caitlin's gentle compassion. But he's not over-eager to share this experience with them, either. They don't need to see what he's seen. They don't need to become as jaded as he's become.

The Flash works like a machine. Search and rescue, whether in the 21st century or the 22nd, is old hat to him. Sweep the perimeter. Identify areas of structural integrity, if any. Locate the injured, if any. Pray they're not all dead already, pray you're not already too late.

He's lucky on this one. All he finds are ghosts, not bodies - the shelling must have happened in an earlier attack, leaving the building hollow and abandoned well before it buckled. Barry flickers across this carcass of an urban giant, checking and re-checking the rubble for any sign of life or death and ultimately finding neither.

That is, of course, until he pauses atop a makeshift scout tower of cracked concrete and warped rebar and sees the body down there in the street.

He's there in a heartbeat - one literal, human heartbeat - swallowing hard against the swell of regret and sorrow that he can't stop feeling, no matter how many times he lives through this very moment. It's a boy, not fifteen years old, thin and fragile as they all are in this city in this age, his blond hair matted with debris and his chalky face splashed with a riot of crimson.

Barry ignores the damp burn in his eyes, crouching down and passing a trembling hand over the boy. A benediction? An apology? Maybe neither - his palm settles on the boy's narrow chest and wonder of wonders but if there isn't a sluggish human heartbeat just waiting for him to find it.

He doesn't think twice. Barry carefully hoists the boy into his arms and they're off in a crackle of yellow lightning. The streets, familiar-unfamiliar, wink by in a blur. Even so, it takes a span of sluggish, stubborn heartbeats before the Flash decelerates outside the ring of medical tents that forms the hub of the river-bed community.

A rail-thin woman with premature streaks of gray in her hair looks up from her overturned bucket-stool, unimpressed with his flashy appearance. She takes one look at him and his cargo and sighs, creaking to her feet and stamping her cigarette butt out in the dirt.

"A live one this time, eh?"

The Flash nods, his smile shaky, and he offloads the patient into the arms of a burly nurse who's come out to see what the city looks like by daylight. The transfer rocks some sense into the kid, whose eyes crack, unseeing, as he's carried inside.

"This time, yeah," the Flash agrees, a reedy note of victory thrilling through his words. "And you really shouldn't smoke, Dr. Snow."

She glowers at him and cracks her neck. "So I hear," she drawls, "And stop calling me 'doctor.' You and I both know I only finished one year of veterinary school before the world ended."

"I know, I know," the Flash counters, "But it has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

"Scram, kid," she says, dismissing him with a careless turn of the wrist. "Let the grownups get back to work." Neither of them care that, on paper at least, he's over a hundred years her senior.

She turns on a heel and ducks into the tent to tend to her business, ignoring the flip salute the Flash offers before he's gone in a, well, you know.

Something of his good mood must show on his face when he skids to a stop in front of one Eobard Thawne, who is clutching the battered American flag Barry had shoved on him when he left. The whole episode has eaten six, maybe seven minutes of the morning.

"A happy ending?" Thawne guesses. The quirk of his lips is condescending, the glint in his eye supercilious.

It's almost, but not quite, enough to dampen Barry's spirits. Molten lava still pumps through his veins at the sight of him, but he won't sour this victory by playing along. "Didn't you get the memo?" he asks sunnily, "The good guy always saves the day."

A sound like a chuckle escapes Thawne's throat, and he glances down to the Stars and Stripes bunched in his fists. "Doesn't he _just_."

Barry resists the urge to perform another eye roll, because he's better than that. Instead, he rolls his shoulders, starts shifting his weight from foot to foot. "So what are we doing here, Thawne? Are you going to let me in on whatever's going on in that twisted head of yours, or am I going to have to get it out of you the old-fashioned way?"

Thawne's eyes lift, disdain abounding. He tosses the flag off to the side, where it flutters ingloriously to the ground. "My hero," he intones, laying the irony on thick as he can, "Don't you have enough of my blood on your hands for one day?"

"For real?" Barry laughs. He raises the offending hands, turning them over for inspection. "I haven't even touched . . . ."

Barry's stomach turns. Whose blood is this on his hands?

Thawne puts a finger to his chin, mocking Barry's confusion. "I can see the gears churning, Flash, but I'm worried you won't get there quick enough. Mind if I help?" He doesn't take Barry's shaking head as a no.

"We have a, how should I put it, _complicated_ relationship, don't we? We go back and forth through time, cause and effect and cause again, until we don't know where one of us stops and the other begins." He looks up sharply, an outstretched hand held up to Barry. "Stop me if you've heard this before."

Barry's head hasn't stopped shaking and the rest of him is threatening to follow suit. "You just said you were born in Central City. _When_?" He doesn't recognize his own voice.

Thawne lights up, that damned smile pasted all over his damned face. "Like Prometheus' stolen fire, the spark is lit!"

"Don't mess with me, Thawne," Barry hurls the words as hard as he can, wishing they were each of them fists. He throws his arm in the direction of the shattered building instead, the motion as violent as he can make it. "Was that _you_ back there? Did I just save the life of a kid who will one day grow up to become my worst nightmare?"

He's going to be sick. Thawne's smug bastard face is going to make him sick.

"If I'm destined to become the reverse of you," Thawne says, his tone steady, reasonable, sane, all things they both know he is not, "Then it's only logical that you were destined to become the reverse of me, _Barry Allen_."

Time crawls to a halt.

"So now you've seen where I grew up," Thawne's saying, but Barry's no longer capable of listening, no longer capable of seeing, feeling, thinking - "how about we go swing by your old stomping grounds, hm?"

And then he's gone in a riot of crimson, and Barry can do nothing but let all his pent up rage boil over as he gives chase, can only run as though his life depends on it. Because, right now, it's the _only_ thing that does.

* * *

If you'd like, consider also the following:

Cisco whips the cloth off his invention with a flourish, and the gang crowds around, ready to be impressed.

They try. They try really hard to be impressed.

"Oh, it's got . . . ." Caitlin starts. She points at a corner of it that might be relevant. Barry nods, his enthusiasm forced.

"Yeah, and, I like the, uh . . . I like it!" He turns to Caitlin with a bright smile and she returns it, relieved. They turn their smiles to Cisco.

He's frowning. "Guys, I haven't even told you what it does yet."

"By all means," Barry spreads a hand invitingly.

"We're very interested," Caitlin bubbles, quite earnest.

Cisco almost wishes Harry were here, to cut this needless sweetness with a generous helping of salt. He clears his throat.

"Allow me to introduce the Vibe-O-Matic 4000!" The introduction nets him a couple of politely quiet stares. He ignores them. "Get it, see, sometimes I vibe other timelines, right, like ones I experienced - or, would have experienced - only that timeline got the axe and now it's this one and we'd never know there was a change, okay? Okay. So what the Vibe-O-Matic-"

"For real?" Barry asks.

"So what the Vibe-O-Matic 4000 here does, is hook wirelessly to my shades and through the power of science," (a theatrical hand gesture) "when my powers detect a shift in the timeline, the Vibe-O-Ma-"

"Bro, come on."

"-tic 4000 will alert us to that fact. Any questions? Not you, Barry."

Barry puts his hand down.

Caitlin raises hers. "Why does it look like a lunchbox with a tape reel stuck to it?"

"Oh, see," Cisco says, relieved, "It's an homage. 'It goes ding when there's stuff.' You'll get it, when it, when it does the thing."

Caitlin smiles. "I see." She doesn't.

Barry shrugs. "Fire it up, Cisco. Let's see the Viber-Tron in action."

Cisco drops his shoulders, shakes his head. "Why you gotta be hating on the name, man."

There's a moment of awkward shuffling until Caitlin presses, "Well I, for one, can't wait to see it beep and boop and all that exciting stuff I'm sure it's going to do."

"Just 'ding,' but whatever," Cisco waves the distinction aside with a small smile. "Okay. Three, two, one, let's jam!"

He presses the button. The tape reel starts to spin. The gang looks between each other and the device expectantly.

"Ding!" goes the device.

"Alright!" Cisco cheers. The other two share - finally - an impressed glance.

"Ding!" goes the device. "Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding-ding-ding-dingdingdingdindidididdididdingdingdidididdinding-"

 _Rewind_.

There's a moment of awkward shuffling until Caitlin presses, "Well I, for one, can't wait to see it beep and boop and all that exciting stuff I'm sure it's going to do."

"Just 'ding,' but whatever," Cisco waves the distinction aside with a small smile. "Okay. Three, two, one, let's jam!"

He presses the button. The tape reel starts to spin. The gang looks between each other and the device expectantly.

"Ding!" goes the device.

"Great!" shouts Barry, far too loudly (and is he out of breath?). "It works. Let's turn it off, okay? Let me just-" He switches off the Vibe-O-Matic 4000. "Good work, bud. But how about we never, ever turn that on again. Okay? Okay."


End file.
